This Week Experts Tackle Sugary Drinks. They Are Not Happy.

Soda. Fruit juices. Artificially sweetened beverages. They all took a big hit yesterday with a new study published in the BMJ (the British Medical Journal) by Fumiaki Imamura from Cambridge University.

For the last few months we’ve offered several reports to you regarding the general concern about soda and other similar beverages that tend to cause a host of problems for people, especially over a long period of time. Although sentiment seems to be changing regarding these things, the amount consumed still remains strong.

This particular study reviewed 17 major studies looking at links between sugary beverage consumption and the connection to Type 2 Diabetes. After comparing the statistics on these studies, they discovered that people who consumed one sugary drink per day had an 18% increased risk of developing diabetes over a 10 year period. This was compared to individuals who didn’t consume the drinks. After they made some adjustments for weight, they found the risk of developing diabetes for a normal weight person was still increased by 13%.

“Even if people have the same body weight, or body size,” lead author Fumiaki Imamura stated, “the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages of one serving per day was associated with 13% higher risk of type 2 diabetes.”

This new realization, that even someone within their normal weight could have a risk of diabetes, surprised the researchers. The study also led them to question whether artificially sweetened drinks proved to be much better. Although no direct causation could be found, correlation could be seen with all of these beverages and diabetes.

In the end the researchers estimated that in the 21 million diabetes cases predicted to develop by 2020 in the US, about two million of these could be prevented if people stopped consuming these types of drinks. The numbers for the United Kingdom are smaller, but the impact no less important.

For all of us the question becomes – will we make a change? As more time passes, and we see the effects of these products on our overall health, the data will continue to paint a clearer picture. We can certainly wait to see what that picture ultimately looks like, or we can take a cue from what is coming forth now and make that change.

We encourage you to read through the study (again click HERE) and share your thoughts with us here.

Sugary drinks surround us for sure, but in the end we do have choice. That is encouraging.